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Ephesians 3:3-11 reveals that we may experience and enjoy Christ as the mystery of the church.
Christ as the mystery of the church was not made known to man in other generations but was revealed to the apostles and prophets in their spirit. In Ephesians 3:4-5 Paul speaks of the mystery of Christ, “which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit.” This mystery is God’s economy, which is to dispense Christ, as the embodiment of God, into God’s chosen people in order to produce a Body to be the increase of God’s embodiment in Christ, that God may have a corporate expression.
According to verse 5, Christ as the mystery of the church was hidden in other generations but has been revealed in the New Testament age. In the New Testament we have the revelation, the unveiling, of God’s economy. In other ages and generations this economy was a hidden mystery. It was not made known to Adam, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, or to Isaiah and the other prophets. God’s economy, which is to dispense Himself into man in order to produce a Body for His Son, had not been revealed to them.
Christ, the Son of God, is the embodiment of God. God’s economy is to dispense Himself into a great number of human beings in order to produce a Body for this embodiment of Himself. This means that the Son of God as the embodiment of God requires a Body, an increase, an expansion. This expansion can be produced only by God’s dispensing of Himself into His chosen people. This is the greatest mystery in the universe. God’s economy is to dispense Himself into His chosen people in order to produce the Body as the expansion of the Son of God for the full expression of God in the universe. Nothing is greater or more important than this.
This mystery was revealed to the apostles and prophets. Apostles in Greek means “sent ones.” The apostles are the ones sent by Christ, representing Him to carry out His commission in God’s New Testament economy. The prophets are God’s spokesmen, not primarily predicting the future but speaking for God and speaking forth God in the revelation of God’s eternal economy.
Verse 5 says that the mystery was revealed to the apostles and prophets in spirit. The word spirit here refers to the human spirit of the apostles and prophets, a spirit regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. It can be considered the mingled spirit, the human spirit mingled with God’s Spirit. Such a mingled spirit is the means by which the New Testament revelation concerning Christ and the church is revealed to the apostles and prophets. We need the same kind of spirit to see such a revelation.
It is important to see that the hidden mystery is revealed to the apostles and prophets, not in their mind but in their mingled spirit. Our spirit is the organ in which God reveals His mystery to us. To see and to understand the mystery of Christ, our human mentality apart from our mingled spirit is altogether inadequate. If we remain in our mind, we will be unable to see God’s revelation, but if we turn to our spirit, we will have the vision of God’s mystery. The revelation of God’s hidden mystery in Ephesians 3 can be seen only when we are in our spirit. This is the reason that the apostle Paul prayed that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation (1:17) so that we may understand the church, which is the mystery of Christ. In order to see the hidden mystery in God’s eternal economy, we should exercise not only our eyes to read the Word and our mind to understand the Word but also our spirit to apprehend the Word. We need to open our being, be poor in spirit, and pray that the Lord would reveal to our spirit what is on His heart concerning the church.
Moreover, in order to see the revelation of the hidden mystery, we must be strengthened into our inner man, our regenerated spirit, and allow Christ to make His home in our heart (3:17). Being strengthened into the inner man is the secret of seeing the revelation of the mystery.
We need to receive the same revelation given to the leading apostles and prophets. Paul could not receive this revelation for us; we must receive it ourselves personally and subjectively by being strengthened into our inner man. This revelation concerning Christ and the church is the economy of God, the hidden mystery. Whether or not we are today’s apostles and prophets depends on whether or not we have seen the revelation. If we do not have the revelation, then we cannot be apostles and prophets. If we have the revelation of God’s economy, we will be followers of the apostles and prophets in God’s New Testament ministry.
Regarding Christ as the mystery of the church, verse 6 says that “in Christ Jesus the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body and fellow partakers of the promise through the gospel.” The expression fellow heirs indicates that in God’s New Testament economy the chosen, redeemed, and regenerated Gentiles and the believing Jews are fellow heirs of God, inheriting God. The phrase fellow members of the Body indicates that the saved Gentiles and the saved Jews are fellow members of the one Body of Christ as His unique expression. The words fellow partakers indicate that the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers are fellow partakers of God’s promise given in the Old Testament, concerning all the blessings of God’s New Testament economy. Being fellow heirs is related to the blessing of the household of God; being fellow members of the Body, to the blessing of the Body of Christ; and being fellow partakers of the promise, to the blessing of the promise of God, such as in Genesis 3:15; 12:3; 22:18; 28:14; and Isaiah 9:6. Both the blessing of God’s household and the blessing of Christ’s Body are particular, whereas the blessing of God’s promise is general, all-inclusive.
In Ephesians 3 Paul tells us that the revelation of the mystery concerning Christ for the church has been given to the apostles and prophets. Paul’s revelation of Christ was mainly a revelation of Christ’s unsearchable riches. According to verse 8, Paul announced the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. The riches of Christ are what Christ is to us, such as light, life, righteousness, and holiness, what He has for us, and what He accomplished, attained, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable and untraceable.
The unsearchable riches of Christ are the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). How all-inclusive and extensive these riches are! The fullness of the Godhead has become the unsearchable riches of Christ to be dispensed into us for our experience and enjoyment.
The riches of Christ also include both human virtues and divine attributes. Christ is the real love, patience, and forgiveness. Apart from Christ we cannot love, be patient, or forgive, but when we have Christ, we have the uplifted human virtues and also certain of the divine attributes.
Christ’s riches are vast and inexhaustible. In the Scriptures these riches are depicted in types, such as light, the sun, the morning star, the vine, the apple tree, the cedar, the cypress, the Passover, wheat, barley, the henna flower, Adam, Abel, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Aaron, and Moses. Beneath the surface of the Bible are all the riches of Christ seen in the types. Because these riches are so vast, it is difficult for anyone to say how many types of Christ there are. Just this one matter of the types reveals many of the riches of Christ.
Christ’s riches are also portrayed in shadows, figures, prophecies, and in the fulfillment of prophecies. In the Bible the first prophecy concerning Christ is Genesis 3:15, a verse which predicts that Christ as the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent, Satan. This implies that Christ had to become a man born of a virgin, for He was to be the seed of woman. This one verse reveals much of the riches of Christ.
All the riches of Christ are for the producing of the church. The church is produced not by teaching or by organizing but by the dispensing of Christ into us. The riches of Christ produce the church through our experience and enjoyment of Christ. On Christ’s side, it is a matter of dispensing, but on our side, it is a matter of experience and enjoyment. When we experience and enjoy Christ who is dispensed into us, we become part of the proper church life. As the riches of Christ are dispensed into us, we need to digest and assimilate them. By absorbing Christ’s riches in this way, we become His Body as His fullness to express Him (Eph. 1:22-23). Therefore, the Body of Christ is constituted of the riches of Christ enjoyed and assimilated by us.
Ephesians 3:9 says, “To enlighten all that they may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things.” God’s mystery is His hidden purpose, which is to dispense Himself into His chosen people. Hence, there is the economy of the mystery of God. This mystery was hidden in God throughout the ages, but now the New Testament believers, having been enlightened, are able to see it.
In verse 9 the English word economy is an anglicized form of the Greek word oikonomia, which denotes a household administration, or arrangement. This means that God’s economy is God’s household management, God’s household administrative arrangement, the divine plan. In this economy, which is eternal and of God, a mystery was hidden. A mystery, a mysterious story, was hidden in the eternal God and in His eternal economy. This mystery, this mysterious story, is the church.
Verse 10 continues, “In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church.” God’s wisdom is manifold; it has many aspects and many directions. This wisdom is expressed to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies, mainly to the evil powers of Satan. God desires to demonstrate to the powers of Satan how wise He is. Thus, the riches of Christ display His wisdom in a multifarious way.
According to verse 10, it is through the church that God’s multifarious wisdom is made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies. As revealed in verse 8, the church is produced from the unsearchable riches of Christ. When God’s chosen people partake of and enjoy the riches of Christ, they are constituted with those riches to be the church, through which God’s multifarious wisdom is made known to the angelic rulers and authorities in the heavenlies. Hence, the church is God’s wise exhibition of all that Christ is.
The church as the Body of Christ is composed of those who once were ruined, corrupted, and damaged. Before we were saved, we were dead in trespasses and sins, and we were scattered and divided, utterly unable to be one. We all were in a hopeless situation. Nevertheless, in His wisdom God is able to make us the church. Now we are not only redeemed, saved, cleansed, freed, liberated, and regenerated — we are one with God and with one another. Therefore, we are the church.
The church is God’s greatest boast. God cares very much for the church. In His wisdom God has taken the people whom Satan ruined and has made them into the church. After God had created man and had put him into the garden, Satan intervened, convinced that the best way to ruin the man created by God for Himself was to inject his own evil nature into him. At the time of man’s fall, Satan as sin entered into man and, in many respects, caused man to be the same as he is. For this reason the Bible refers to fallen men as the offspring of vipers (Matt. 3:7; 12:34). Having come into man as sin, Satan has made himself one with man and has transmuted man’s body into the flesh. But one day God became flesh (John 1:14). Eventually, Satan caused this One who had become flesh to be crucified. First, Satan instigated Judas to betray the Lord Jesus, and then he stirred up the Jews and the Gentiles to cooperate in crucifying Him. What Satan did not realize, however, was that in putting this One on the cross, he was actually crucifying himself. As Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil.” Through His own death on the cross, the Lord Jesus destroyed Satan. This is a display of God’s marvelous wisdom.
Even the rebellion of Satan is within the realm of God’s wisdom. If it were not for Satan’s rebellion, God’s wisdom could not be made known in a full way. Satan has created many opportunities for God’s wisdom to be manifested in a multifarious way, that is, in various ways and aspects and from many angles.
God’s wisdom is exhibited in His redemption of fallen man. God foreknew that His enemy would rebel against Him, and He was prepared to face that situation. God also foreknew that the man created in His image for His purpose would be induced by Satan to sin, and He was also prepared to face that situation. Seemingly, the fall of man presented a great problem to God. However, this simply afforded Him an opportunity to express His wisdom in His redemption.
Because man was poisoned by Satan and corrupted by sin, God not only redeemed man but also regenerated him with His life. God redeemed man so that He could regenerate him with the divine life. Now God is working continually to sanctify His regenerated people with His holy nature and to transform them with His element. The divine life is for regeneration, the holy nature is for sanctification, and the divine element is for transformation. Furthermore, God will conform His regenerated, sanctified, and transformed people to the image of His Son. Eventually, He will glorify them with Himself. Therefore, the divine life, the divine nature, the divine element, the divine being, and the divine glory will all be used to form fallen and corrupted man into a Body to express Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. How much wisdom is required for this!
No human words can tell the greatness of God’s wisdom in redemption, regeneration, sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification. Nevertheless, by His mercy and grace, in our spirit we can apprehend with all the saints such a marvelous wisdom. In our spirit we can realize that God uses all He is and has to produce His family so that He may have a Body prepared and formed for His Son to express the Son as the embodiment of the Triune God. Such a Body is prepared and formed through regeneration by the divine life, sanctification by the divine nature, transformation by the divine element, conformation by the divine being, and glorification by the divine glory.
According to 1 Corinthians 1:30, Christ is our wisdom with respect to righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. As our righteousness, Christ has dealt with our past, which was altogether unrighteous. For our present situation, Christ is our sanctification, and for the future, He is our redemption. One day our body will be redeemed, that is, transfigured (Rom. 8:23). For Christ to be our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption requires much wisdom on God’s part. Although Christ is our righteousness for the past, our sanctification for the present, and our redemption for the future, He is also our daily righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
In order to understand this adequately, we need to see the full scope of God’s economy. After the creation and the fall of man, God became flesh through incarnation. Then the Lord Jesus went to the cross and there crucified the flesh. After passing through death and resurrection, He ascended into the heavens, then descended and entered into us as the life-giving Spirit in order to enliven our deadened spirit and to regenerate us. Having regenerated us, He now dwells in our spirit as life. In this life, the divine life, we have the law of life, the sense of life, and the fellowship of life. The Lord, however, is not only life to us; He is also the anointing within us. Furthermore, He is daily sealing us, saturating us, anointing us, and permeating us. As this takes place, we spontaneously live Him, and He becomes our righteousness. This is God’s wisdom.
Through the work of the Spirit of life, a change is taking place in our nature. It is a metabolic change, a change that sanctifies and transforms us. Thus, Christ is not only our righteousness but also our sanctification. Furthermore, we are daily being redeemed, and eventually we will be glorified. Christ is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, not only in an objective way but in a very subjective way — in the way of mingling and changing us metabolically. All this is a testimony to God’s multifarious wisdom. Many aspects of God’s wisdom are manifested in His making Christ our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Our experience of Christ in these matters is according to God’s manifold wisdom.
Because of His wisdom God can boast to Satan of what He has done with the man Satan corrupted and ruined. Have you ever realized that what we are as believers today is of God’s wisdom? Only God has the wisdom to initiate such a wonderful thing, to make sinful and corrupted people the members of Christ.
The church through which God’s wisdom is so marvelously displayed is God’s masterpiece. In the eyes of God the most wonderful thing in the universe is the church, for through the church God’s multifarious wisdom is made known to Satan and his angels. The day is coming when Satan and his angels will be put to shame. They will realize that everything they have done has given God the opportunity to manifest His wisdom.
Ephesians 3:11 goes on to say, “According to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The eternal purpose is the purpose of eternity, the purpose of the ages, the eternal plan of God made in eternity past. It was made in Christ with a threefold intention: for God’s glory, for the blessing of God’s chosen people, and for the shame of God’s enemy. The main intention of God’s purpose is to glorify God, to express Him through His chosen people. This is the greatest blessing to us. In this, God’s enemy is shamed to the uttermost.
God made His eternal plan, His eternal economy, in Christ. The Christ revealed in the Bible is the embodiment of the Triune God and all the processes through which He has passed, including incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension. In such a Christ, God made His eternal economy. Christ, therefore, is the center, circumference, element, sphere, means, goal, and aim of God’s eternal economy. Christ is everything in God’s economy. In fact, all the contents of the eternal economy are simply Christ.
In brief, we all should believe that in Christ we are the fellow heirs of God, fellow members of the Body, and fellow partakers of the promise through the gospel with His unsearchable riches in order to enlighten all that they may see what is the economy of the mystery hidden in God throughout the ages, which is the mystery of the church as the Body of Christ.
